Author: Antony Nicklin

Session 117

27th Jourilden, 2:50pm

We continued to clash with the undead, underwater monstrosities. Thorfus and Chuq are bloodied, and the dwarf and Canis are about to find themselves in a difficult situation.

In an effort to deal with the bigger nasties, Edan stepped forward and begins a chant to cast a Lightning Bolt. Thorfus deigns to keep on fighting, in a effort to see if we can win. So with arrow, hammer, sword and monkey claw we laid into the enemies. Unfortunately the advancing automonkeys draw sight on even more creatures approaching from around a corner, alerting Thorfus to thier presence. In response, our fearless leader beheads the humanoid in front of him, followed by Edan unleashing a bolt of lightning into the troll and spider, killing the latter.

Whilst we keep fighting, how illustrious wizard switches from lightning to ice, dropping a sheet of it onto the troll, though the beast seems to power through it and merely tries to smash a monkey with its fists. From the east, a number of sea urchins roll into view.

Simultaneously, the humanoids, including the headless one begin repeating the words ‘No Escape’ over and over, the troll growling a long with it. In his head, Chuq mentally picks up part of a conversation in Ancient Dwarven, and he quickly passes it on to Thorfus and Edan to translate…

[Insert Speech Here]

Shards of glass rain down on Chuq, but he preternaturally avoids getting cut to shreds by them. Another burst of shattering glass comes from above Giacomo, who is less fortunate. From above, eight searching tentacles drop towards the party, presumably the appendages of the giant squid. Chuq quickly grabs Edan and Ronan, stepping behind the troll to relative safety, where Ronan is able to bring it down with his bastard sword. The tentacles grab the nearest targets available, wrapping up a monkey and Giacomo.

Thorfus steps forward and slams the door shut, quaffing a healing potion at the same time before trying to reason with the voice, calling out in Ancient Dwarven. He asks why they attack, that we aren’t there to cause trouble. In the other room, the captured monkey lashes out, but gets crushed tighter by the tentacle before the creature’s giant beak simply crushes the automaton. Other tentacles simply begin beating on the door or smashing more of the glass, dropping more creatures in.

In the corridor, the urchins begin firing spines at the automonkeys, though in the chaos of combat only succeed in skewering the human, who the monkeys bring down moments later.

The squid succeeds in bashing down the door behind us, sending the entire thing smashing into the desk moments after Thorfus moved away. Three tentacles reach in afterwards, just feet away from being able to hit us, but instead grab the desk a simply smack Canis with it. Luckily for the Druid, the old furniture is brittle enough to simply break around him without causing much damage.

Over the battle, Edan hears a voice say, “Interesting, not dwarf. It doesn’t even understand.”

Whilst several party members deal with the nearest dead creatures by dismembering and seperating the body parts, Edan moves over to unleash a cone of cold from the wand at the tentacles and creatures beyond the door. The blast of freezing cold air withers the three tentacles in the door way, and as they drop, we can see two more as well as several merfolk have been similarly affected. The tentacles crack and shatter off of the rest of the squid.

Moments later, there is a blast of dust and debris, which clear to reveal the statue of the dragon having fallen through the ceiling alongside the main body of the squid. For it’s troubles it merely gets another Cone of Cold from Edan’s wand. To the east, Canis, Thorfus and the monkeys keep fighting off of the undead underwater menagerie.

Angered at all the magic blasting through the door at it, the squid lashed out with a tentacle and grabbed Edan, despite Canis’ best efforts. A second tentacle grabs a broken monkey, taking it away, whilst a third grabs Ronan. A third Cone gets blasted from Edan’s free arm, shattering more of the creature’s tentacles. It’s shell pitted and scarred, laced with frozen water, Chuq and Ronan let loose a flurry daggers and arrows, a final arrow from Ronan finally splitting the squid’s shell. It’s throes of pain knock the statue of XenoTel, causing it fall onto the beast, crushing the life out of it.

“So you survived. You should come and see us.” The voice says to Chuq, now in stilted and broken Common.

He asks for directions, but get no response, so we take the time to collect ourselves. The two undead Imperials only carried what they wore, armour and robes. In one of the rooms, we find some more research notes. Giacomo’s corpse is recovered, as are the broken monkeys, one of which is currently beyond repair.

After an hour, we start branching out to continue exploration, finding more dormitory rooms and a privy. Another tapestry depicts the Dragon Emperor on his throne, with two entwined Red Dragons above. At the end of one corridor, we find a room with a pool similar to the room where we found the odd vehicle, this one empty. Attempting to use the controls is met with no reaction, evidently there is no power in this room either. We leave the room and spike the door.

Returning to the central chamber, we decide to look at the eastern door next. Chuq feels wild frustrated emotions and hears banging beyond the door. The room beyond appears to be a kitchen of some kind, bearing similarities to kitchens in Xen’Khel. A creature with a humanoid torso and squid-like lower half is pinned by tridents, allowing Chuq to easily dispatch it.

Still detecting similar emotions to the east, and still hearing banging, Chuq leads the way there, whilst Edan checks the cupboards, finding petrified foods. Any of the food preparation machinery seems to have been gutted.

Down a hallway, the banging seems to be coming from the first door, and only dies down as we move around, preparing for battle. Popping the door, we see a monstrosity of flesh and scales. It rolls out of the door, simply barrelling over the automonkeys, Thorfus and Ronan, tendrils and appendages wrapping around them.

Chuq retaliates by smashing bottles of holy water into the abomniation’s hide. Ronan, trapped practically inside it, desperately tries to cut his way out, Canis attempting to assist.  A flurry of blows from Thorfus and the automonkeys cut away a lot of appendages, but it continues to writhe around for a short while more before the sheer number of blows down the creature.

As it falls to a stop, we notice a large number of items either caught up in the mass or worn by appendages within; stones, scroll cases, scraps of clothing and rings. We collect the items and look into the room it came from, which appears to have been a storeroom of some kind, with shelves lining the walls.

The Sahuagin who come to gather the thing’s body seem to be averting thier gazes, refusing to meet our eyes.

The final room is also seemingly empty. A single human corpse is hanging from a grate in the ceiling by the neck. His body is covered with tattoos, very much like a Dervish’s. It is currently swinging about the room, reaching out for us as it does so. Oddly, we notice that but for the odd length, the rope hanging it appears for all the world to be made of hair which glows slightly in the dim lighting. Knowing we need to be careful about how we deal with this, we ponder a course of action.